October 15-17, 2018 | Fairmont Dallas, Dallas, Texas

However, securing countless devices and sensors presents a challenge, despite the possibilities and potential rewards of IoT and IIoT. The debilitating Mirai botnet was powerful enough to bring down part of the Internet and highlighted how IoT devices can be compromised to disastrous ends. 

In the industrial arena, unsecured IoT devices can provide a conduit for a variety of attack vectors, including the theft of sensitive data and the collapse of core systems — some of which the general public may heavily rely upon. 

IoT vendors are often now doing their part to bring security up to an acceptable standard. However, the use of default credentials, a lack of encryption, and piecemeal firmware updates are still far more common than they should be.

feel that they do not have access to the right tools for the job. 

of manufacturers admit they have no technical or managerial processes in place to even start assessing cybersecurity risk. 

of manufacturers said that they have been subject to a cybersecurity incident, half of whom suffered some financial loss or disruption to business as a result.

Cisco estimates that by 2020, the number of connected devices in circulation will reach 50 billion. Many of these devices are small and have limited RAM and processing power which can make over-the-air (OTA) updates and the implementation of security systems on-disk difficult.

This does not mean that the enterprise and industrial players cannot bridge the gap when they have active IoT deployments. There is an array of emerging technologies which can help ensure that IoT endpoints become as secure as core, central networks.